Revision as of 14:12, 10 March 2011

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Biology/Physics Building Room 130, 9:00am to ~ 4:00pm

The EEB Graduate Student Symposium is an all day event where graduate students present their research to other graduate students and faculty. Any EEB graduate student can present: BSMS, masters, PhD, old and new students. New graduate students usually present research ideas or preliminary data, while those more ‘seasoned’ students present their most recent results, often in preparation for upcoming spring and summer meetings.

Abstracts

Name Here Title Here
Abstract Here

Karolina FucikovaBracteacoccus and its relatives: a case of cryptic genera Bracteacoccus, one of the most common soil algae, is taxonomically interwoven with several other genera. In particular, its relationship with the morphologically similar Dictyococcus, Muriella and Pseudomuriella is quite tangled because these share a similar overall morphology with Bracteacoccus. This has raised questions about the validity of these genera and the proper taxonomic disposition for their species. Phylogenetic relationships for a number of these taxa can be addressed using molecular sequence data obtained from live type strains. Using analyses of the 18S and rbcL genes, we determined that monophyly of Bracteacoccus can be achieved only by excluding four unrelated lineages that historically have been included under this name. Firstly, B. engadinensis belongs in the genus Pseudomuriella, along with Dictyococcus schumacherensis. Secondly, B. cinnabarinus and B. minutus group with Muriella zofingiensis, a species with its own obscure taxonomic history. These three species are distinct from the true Muriella lineage (Trebouxiophyceae) and we propose to assign them to the resurrected genus Chromochloris (Chlorophyceae). Lastly, Dictyococcus was shown to be an unrelated lineage that can be reliably distinguished from Bracteacoccus based on chloroplast morphology. Our results indicate that Pseudomuriella, Chromochloris and Bracteacoccus are morphologically cryptic genera, representing closely related yet divergent lineages.